Elixir
by Ravencroft Destati
Summary: A year after the events of Geostigma and Sephiroth's remnants, life is back to normal for everyone but when Captain Highwind crosses paths with a mysterious young woman known as Kazumi, new adventures await them...despite their 15 year age difference.
1. Chapter 1

It's another late Saturday night at the Seventh Heaven bar, quite busy too. Bar owner, Tifa Lockhart, is doing quite well keeping up with business as she serves another drink on tap to her good friend and long time comrade, Captain Cid Highwind. "Another one on the house Cid." Tifa briefly speaks as she tends to her other patrons. Cid slightly nods at her as he held his glass up a bit to purse his lips around the glass. "And another scotch for you." Tifa had herself near an unknown person in a dark brown hooded cloak, who happens to be sitting next to the world famous pilot. The hooded figure speaks no words and leaves the bar maid the money due for the drink. People were in and out until it was close to closing time. The only two left were the captain and the hooded figure. Tifa didn't mind the hooded figure staying after hours as they caused no trouble and voluntarily helped clean up a bit.

"Where's tha' spikey head Cloud off ta, tonigh'?" Cid smirked at Tifa as he hasn't seen Cloud in quite some time. Tifa slowed down for a moment to chat with her friend. "Oh you know how Cloud is with his delivery service of his. He's been getting quite a lot of overnight jobs. Mostly to Junon." When she finished speaking, a few wandering men entered the tavern but when Tifa told them it was closing time and she was done serving drinks, they pulled out a few hand guns and held her up as they pistol whipped the captain in his forehead, causing him to fall out of the bar stool and feel light headed. "Give us all the Gil you have and nobody gets hurt.", one of the young punks demanded. The hooded figure, still untouched, abruptly interrupts as they get up from their seat and slowly walk towards the ones with guns pointing to them, "None of you rookies aren't going to get anything tonight. It is quite obvious it is your first time doing such a crime." A grin can be seen from under the hood as they continue to speak, "First off, none of you turned the safety off your Makarov pistols. You all are holding them on a sideways angle. Seems to me you're trying to steady the recoil. More of a style for revolvers. Plus I can see you're all shaking. See? Bunch of rookies." The hooded figure stands just inches away from the barrel of one of the Makarovs in their face when they grabbed the wrist of one of the men, twisting it enough to make them let go of their weapon. The other two try to shoot the person when their guns jam on them. The figure leg sweeps the first man to the ground as they hit their head and becomes unconscious due to a concussion. The other two charge at the figure with hand knives when the figure grabs the second man's arm, twists it and smashes their elbow on theirs causing it to dislocate. The third man grabs the hood and yanks it off, revealing a woman with long, raven black hair. "A w-woman! How...great." The woman turns around to grab the gun from the third man. She takes his arm, gun still in his grasp, behind his back and points it into his spine. "This one isn't jammed. Dare me to pull the trigger for you?" The cocky woman smirks when she removes the gun from the rookie's hand and disassembles it in front of him and tosses the pieces to the ground.

Shortly after, the Edge police arrive due to Tifa setting off the silent alarm from behind her counter As the officers haul away the hellions, Tifa tends to the gash on Cid's forehead, making sure her friend is fine. "Goddamned bastards did a number on mah head!" The captain grunts in pain as he slightly winces when blood drips down his face. "Tifa, I'll help him out while you get your money safe." The woman demands as she kneels down to Cid and finishes patching up the cut. "Yes, Kazumi. Thank goodness you were here tonight." Tifa smiled and nodded as she listened to her friend's words. Kazumi looks carefully at Cid's forehead. "Hrm. You're lucky this isn't that bad or else you'd need stitches. Just hold still." Kazumi wiped the blood off as she wraps a head bandage tight on his forehead. "Ya got some balls on ya, girly! Neva' I seen tha' before. Did Tif' say ya name's Kazzie? Wha' was that ya did on them boys?" The captain continues to hold his head in pain as Kazumi nods. "The name's Kazumi and that I did was called close quarters combat or CQC. Only found in the ShinRa military. I use it to live each day and night on the streets. Gotta survive somehow in this world." Kazumi looks away from him as she stands back up and heads toward the exit of the tavern. The captain slowly stands up as well and heads toward her and grabs her shoulder. "Why a girly like you livin' on the streets?" Kazumi stops and stands still, facing the doorway she speaks in a low tone. "Because some are not as fortunate as others." She turns around and looks up into Cid's eyes with a hard glare. "Just remember that. Never take what you have for granted. Your friends nor your family." Cid looks down at her and chuckles sarcastically. "Family my ass. I ain't have none!" He holds his hand out for a friendly shake. Kazumi looks down at his hand and firmly grasps onto it. "Kazumi Murasaki." The captain looks surprised at her as he never met a woman with such grasp. "Captain Cid Highwind but ya probably already knew that." She nods and lets go of his strong hand. "ex-First Lieutenant of the ShinRa army. Everybody's connected to the ShinRa one way or another." Kazumi turns back to the door and heads out. To Cid's surprise, he hasn't anything to say about that. "F-First Lieutenant? Since when did those ShinRa bastards let women join their army? Plus she ain't old 'nough to hold tha' kind o' rankin'." He looks out the door to find her but can't see her in sight. She vanished so suddenly. Is Kazumi who she reallys says or is she messing with everybody's minds?


	2. Chapter 2

A week has gone by since the attempted armed robbery at Tifa's Seventh Heaven bar and also when mysterious young woman, Kazumi Murasaki, helped ward the pathetic rookie of robbers away. Business is slow again and Captain Highwind is back at the tavern in the middle of the day because he had to personally pick-up an order from Strife Delivery Service due to he would be able to get his airship upgrade parts cheaper and faster. "Yo, thanks a bunch spikey head! Save me lots o' money!" He playfully smacks the back of Cloud Strife, the owner and operater of Strife Delivery Service. Cloud slightly smiles and has the other blonde man sign his share of the papers. A moment later Marlene, the brunette, adoptive, young daughter of Coral native Barret Wallace, and Denzel, another brunette; an orphan currently living with Cloud and Tifa due to the recent incidents of Meteorfall and Geostigma. Both children drag in a young woman who is carrying a bag of groceries to prepare dinner tonight. "Come on, Miss Kazumi! Tonight will be fun!" Marlene playfully chuckles and happily twirls as she enters through. Denzel helps carry in the rest. Kazumi then enters wearing a black and white dress that ties behind her neck and starts to slit open at both sides of her hips. At the end of her dress is a black decal of a Wutaian cherry blossom tree. She wears standard black shorts underneath along with black fishnet stockings that sit above her knees and heavy duty, black, leather combat boots that rest just below her knees. On each of her slightly toned upper arms are simple barbed wire tattoos. On her slender hands and wrists are long, black, fingerless gloves that stretch near her elbows with olive green and grey arm bracers on them. Her long, raven hair rest just below her waist line. Her eyes are unusual compared to normal people around her. Her eye colour is reversed, meaning instead of her pupil (the inner circle of the eye; the part that can dialate) being black and her iris (the outer coloured ring around the pupil) being in colour, her pupil was bright blue and her iris was black. This is only a trait the ancient ethnicity of people have known as the Nocturni. The Nocturni are distant cousins of the now extinct Cetra, the people who had the ability to "listen" to the Planet.

"One of you children need to take these bags out of my hands before I trip on my untied boot lace here." As soon as she enters the tavern, she trips on her said untied boot lace. When she starts to fall to the ground on her face, the bag of eggs she carries fumbles around. An egg gets loose and flies out of the bag and heads, unfortunately, directly toward the back of the head of Captain Highwind. "Oh shiii-" A loud thump was heard when her face met the hardwood floor as the flying jumbo egg cracked open on the back of the head of the scruffy blonde captain. Both Marlene and Denzel hide behind some bar tables as they fear when Cid gets angry. Marlene whipsers to Denzel. "Poor Miss Kazumi! I can't watch!" Denzel holds her close as she whimpers for her elder friend. The captain runs his gloved hand through the back of his hair only to feel egg yolk. His facial expression goes from calm and pleased to angry and furious. "Who the fuck just di-" He turned around to see a flat faced woman, hidden behind her dreadfully long hair. "Hmph! Damned girly! Do ya know who ya messin' wit'!" He walks toward the downed lady and kneels down to her. The angry captain digs through her bag and finds another egg and cracks it on her head. "Don'cha ever mess wit' me, girly!" Kazumi peeks through her hair with a look of "Did you really just do that?". Kazumi quickly gets up and tackles Cid to the ground. She hovers over his firm and built body. "Maybe you need to realize what just happened was just an accident, asshole!" She snarls angrily at him. Cid cracks a smile and takes his yolk covered hand and squeezes Kazumi's cute and slightly chubby cheeks. "Ya can't even take a joke, Kazzie! I'd never get mad at ya! Ya covered our asses back there last week!" The children breathe a sigh of relief for their friend, Miss Kazumi as they go take the bags into the kitchen.

Cloud helps take Kazumi's groceries back into the kitchen as Cid and Kazumi get off the floor and wash off. Cid, in a better mood, ruffles the yolk more into her hair. "T-That's not funny...you know how long it takes to wash my hair as it is?" Kazumi lightly elbows the playful captain in the stomach. "Why such the attitude, Kazzie? Ligthen up a bit, why don'cha!" Cid helps wash the yolk from her hair in the kitchen sink as she holds her head under the running water. Kazumi stays silent for a while, trying not to get more pissed off than she needs to be. "Ya got spunk in ya. I like that 'bout ya! Ya should come to mah airship and cook 'er somethin'. Pays well. I'm staying fer dinner tonigh' so I'll see whacha got, girly." To Kazumi's surprise, she smiles and flips her long, wet hair back as it drenches the captain behind her. "I hope you're not bullshitting me...are you?" She looks away smiling. Cid shakes some of the water off him and wraps an arm around her shoulder. "I 'member ya sayin' yer livin' on the streets. I'm just tryin' ta help ya, Kazzie. Don't bother me if ya decline mah offer." He looks at Kazumi and flicks her in the forehead before he walks back out to finish up his paperwork with Cloud. 

Denzel comes to help Kazumi prepare dinner. "What's on the menu, Miss Kazumi?" Marlene comes in as well and asks the same question. "Don't you worry, children! We are all going to be well fed! Nice, flavourful turkey with garlic stuffing. I also have juicy cranberry sauce with sweet corn on the cob, fresh baked buttery rolls, green bean casserole and delicious apple pie!" The young ones look up to their older friend in awe. "I just need one thing from you two: I need to do this by myself today." She scurries the children out of her way as she ties her hair back and gets to work. The turkey already has been cooking in the oven for a few hours already. The kitchen gets hot and steamy fast but yet she keeps at her work in there. Sweat pours down her face but she keeps working hard to feed her friends. "Ah ha! The turkey is done! Everything else is just about done!" A few moments later she lays everything out on the dinner table for everybody. "Complete! Time to eat!" Everybody takes a seat at the table: Cloud, Tifa, Denzel, Marlene, Cid and Kazumi. When Kazumi sits, she realizes that she has no other spot other than next to the captain. She looks to the children, who are giggling at her, and looks at everybody's plate as she helps serve everybody. Kazumi's plate barely has anything on it compared to everyone else's. She looks to her right and sees the captain realy enjoying his meal. "Goddamn, girly! Ya sure can whip up some grub! Fuckin' love 'er!" He works on his second share already when the others are only half way through their first and Kazumi barely touched hers. She seems kind of glum now. She slowly eats, taking forever for her to finish her plate. "Thanks, Kaz." Cloud briefly speaks as he excuses himself to go work on some more delivery orders but he does help clean up his mess. "Denzel? Marlene? It's quite late now. Please clean your mess up for Miss Kazumi and go wash up for bed." Tifa orders the children from the table politely before thanking Kazumi for such a wonderful time. The children hug and thank her as well before saying good night to her. "I think I'm gonna 'splode, Kazzie! Yer comin' ta work fer me now. No ifs and or buts, girly! Mah boys'll be fed well an' be able ta do their work better wit' food in their stomaches! Thanks a bunch, Kazzie!" He helps her clean up the rest of the food and places the leftovers in Tifa's refrigerator. "Captain? Thanks..." She slightly smiles. "At least I won't have to sleep on the streets anymore." The captain lights up a cigarette as he ruffles her hair more harsly this time. "We're leaving now! I'm a busy pilot, Kazzie! No time ta waste!" He grabs her by her long locks of hair and leads her out the door of the tavern. "O-oww! Lemme go, captain!" Kazumi's life is finally taking a turn for the better. Something that hasn't been possible for her in quite a long time now.


End file.
